Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Gatewood Galbraith to run again

On July 4, Gatewood Galbraith filed paperwork to begin raising money in his fifth run for governor of Kentucky. Galbraith, a lawyer who has focused primarily on marijuana legalization, ran as a Democrat in 1991, 1995, and 2007, and as the Reform Party nominee in 1999, when he won 15 percent of the vote in a four-way race. He has also run for Congress and other state offices. In his 2011 gubernatorial bid, Galbraith will run as an independent, with political consultant Dea Riley as his running mate.

Actually, it's not true at all that he's "focused primarily on marijuana legalization" - that was only a key point in his early campaigns. Gatewood's taken a much broader approach in years since, championing greater freedom and civil liberties in all ways. I recommend his book The Last Free Man in America, which also just happens to be the title of Gatewood's portrait I painted for him, and which we unveiled at his book-signing event at Summit Plaza in December 2004.

In his book and speeches Galbraith goes into detail on what he calls “Synthetic Subversion”. This theory seeks to explain when, how and why America, specifically Kentucky, moved from an agricultural agrarian society into an industrial synthetic society, during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration and the “New Deal” era. Up until then America and Kentucky relied on agriculture for everything to fuel the economy. But during the Great Depression Roosevelt moved America towards a more industrial (synthetic) society out of necessity or according to Galbraith his alliance with “Corporations seeking to gain more money.”